Elvis Presley

Martial arts are about honor, which makes lying about one’s education, prowess, or accomplishments an unforgivable sin. Real martial artists detest this kind of behavior, and actively condemn it. So what motivates anyone to attempt it? Especially in our Google-able times?

With this in mind, we took a look back at some of the most famous embellishers, frauds, and nutjobs in martial arts history. It didn’t give us many answers, but it at least offered us plenty of stories of no-touch knockouts, mail order black belts, fake Russian boxing matches, and melting babies.

We’ve already covered The King’s bizarre karate issues in detail here at Fightland, but here’s the tl:dr version: Elvis discovered karate while he was in the army. After that, he embarked on a half-legit, half-questionable career in which he earned a contestable black belt, performed drug-fueled karate demonstrations during concerts, and split his pants while training.

His karate looked like this:

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